Bet Your Life (28 page)

The main feature, however, was a temporary one. At the end of the garden, with plenty of space around it, there was a huge pile of wood, at least five meters high and the same across.

“Admiring my bonfire?” Harry had come back without me noticing. “Tonight’s the night.”

“It’s going to be a huge fire.”

“It’s going to be epic,” he said happily, handing me a glass. He clinked it with his own. “We always have a bonfire for Bonfire Night but we’ve never had one as big.”

“Are you allowed to have a massive fire in your back garden?”

“If no one calls the cops.” He laughed. “Don’t worry. I got some guys to set it up. They know about that kind of thing. It’s properly stacked and it’s away from any buildings and it’ll all be fine.”

“Sorry. Was I sounding too sensible?”

“A bit.” He laughed again. “But that’s possibly a good thing, given that I am literally playing with fire.”

“I don’t know how your parents can leave you alone in charge of the house.”

“They’re used to it.” He knocked back his juice in one go. “Now, what can I do for you?”

I rubbed condensation off my glass. “It’s a bit awkward.”

“Sounds interesting.” He sat down on one of the sofas, his arms stretched along the back, one foot propped on the opposite knee.

I sat down on the other sofa and sipped my juice, wondering how to start. “You and Seb are friends.”

“Absolutely. He’s my boy.”

“Is this your telephone number?” I handed him the sheet of paper I’d found and he glanced at it.

“Why do you ask?”

“On Saturday night, Seb called that number asking for help. Someone came and got him. Later, he was dumped back in the square with serious head injuries. I think it was you who picked him up and took him to his house, but I can’t prove it.” I waited a second. “The police could prove it, though. Easily.”

“How did you know it was me?” A muscle was flickering in his arm.

“You took your car to the fireworks. I saw it by the gate to the recreation ground. There was no reason for you to drive. You’d been at Guy’s house, then at the recreation ground, and neither of them is far enough from this place for you to need your car.” I drank some more juice, letting Harry think about the consequences of admitting I was right. “Look, I know who did it. I know what happened. I just need you to tell me where you took him.”

“I took him home.” He said it quietly, as if it was no big deal, but it was another little bit of proof for me that my theory was right.

“Did you see anyone there?”

“At his place? No.”

“Any cars outside?”

“I don’t remember. I just dropped him at the front door. Why?”

“I think it was Mrs. Dawson who hurt him and dumped him back in the square.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Personal reasons.” I wasn’t inclined to encourage Harry to ask any questions about it.

“They must be pretty important reasons.”

“They are to her.”

“She nearly killed him, though.” Harry shook his head, stunned. “A real wicked stepmother. How did you find out?”

“Talked to people. I got Seb’s phone. I noticed a few things that night. I don’t know. It all fits together.” I leaned forward and put my half-empty glass down on the table. The sofa was soft and deep, and it was a big stretch to get to the table. “I have to tell the police, Harry. She has to be brought to justice. Will you tell Dan Henderson about your bit? To help Guy?”

“He’ll ask me why I didn’t own up before.”

“It’s a fair question.”

“I know. I feel bad about it. I just didn’t want to get involved. I didn’t know Guy was going to get himself arrested. That’s crazy. I’ve been waiting for the cops to admit he didn’t do it. I mean, there’s no way he’s getting convicted when he had nothing to do with it.”

“You’d hope not, but you really have to come clean now. You can’t let Mrs. Dawson get away with it.”

“No. You’re right. I see that now.”

I picked up my glass again. It felt like a huge effort to lift it and sip from it. Now that I’d said my piece, I was utterly exhausted. This was not the most relaxing conversation I’d ever had. I didn’t know Harry at all, and it wasn’t as if we could go from
Your friend’s stepmother almost killed him
to
What sort of music do you like?

“I should probably go.”

“You really haven’t explained how you worked out it was Mrs. Dawson. Take me through it from the start,” Harry said. He was watching me with that close attention I’d noticed before. Total focus. It made me edgy.

“Another time.” I drained the last of the orange juice and leaned forward again to put my glass back down. I stopped mid-stretch. “What’s that?”

“What?”

“On the rug. By your feet.” The sofa had moved back a little when Harry sat on it, so I could see a brownish-red stain matting the pale gray rug.

“Oh, someone spilled a drink last night. Terrible. I’m going to be losing all my pocket money so my parents can get it cleaned professionally.”

“What were they drinking? Tomato juice?”

“Looks like it.” His knee was jumping. “I’ve made up my mind, Jess. I’ll go to the police. Come clean, as you said. It’s only fair.”

I ignored him. I was looking up at the walkway over our heads. Then I stood up. My head felt light, my feet impossibly heavy. I went to the end of the sofa and looked at the constellation of little brownish-red spots on the side of it. And the other sofa, the one Harry was sitting on—it was in the wrong place. I had had to go round it to see the view. Logic told me it had been moved to cover the carpet.

“What are you doing?” Harry sounded intrigued.

“Working out how Seb got injured.” My voice sounded very small, as if I was a long way away from myself. I dragged my arm up to point at the walkway. “He fell off it, didn’t he? And landed here. And smashed his head on the ground.”

“No. He didn’t.”

“That’s blood on the rug, and the sofa. You haven’t been able to get it off so you’ve tried to cover it up. You like betting, don’t you, Harry? What odds will you give me that it’s Seb’s blood?”

“Have another drink.”

“I’m OK.” I wasn’t. I felt sick. I sat down on the arm of the sofa to disguise the fact that my legs were shaking. “What happened?”

“It
is
blood, but it’s from a fight.”

“You stop the fights as soon as there’s blood. That’s your rule.”

“When two guys are beating the tar out of each other, they don’t always stop because I say so.”

“The police will test it. They’ll be able to match it to Seb. Why did you hurt him? You two are friends. What happened?”

I could see his mind working as he came up with a different story. “It was an accident.”

“Then why didn’t you call an ambulance? Why did you try to cover it up?”

“I panicked. I had half an hour before people started arriving here for a huge party and I had Seb half dead on the floor. I just wanted him gone.”

“You shouldn’t have moved him. You could have killed him.”

“So what’s worse? Being dead or being a vegetable for the rest of his miserable life? He’s screwed. He’s not getting back to normal from that.” Harry’s voice had risen. “They should have let him die.”

“It’s not up to you to decide that kind of thing.” I blinked, trying to clear my head. “You put him back where you found him and drove up to the fireworks display. You made a big deal out of being there, so everyone would remember and give you an alibi, but you only turned up at the end.”

“People believe what you tell them. I told them I’d been there all evening and everyone remembered me being there all evening. Easy.”

My voice sounded as if it was coming from far away. “What did he do to you?”

Harry wavered, then broke. “He was blackmailing me, OK? This poor victim who you’re so worried about was a blackmailer. He found out something about me and he threatened to tell everyone. My parents. My friends. He wanted to destroy me. Or have me pay for everything he wanted for the rest of his life. He made me get that phone so he could always get in touch with me. The Harry Hotline, he called it. Very funny.” Harry thumped his fist on the back of the sofa. “It was never going to stop. I couldn’t say no to him, ever, no matter what he asked, and he was never going to stop.”

“What were you trying to hide? What did he find out that was so terrible?”

“I slept with a girl and I shouldn’t have.”

“That sort of thing happens all the time, though.” I shook my head, bewildered. “Why keep it a secret?”

“She wasn’t aware I’d done it.” He looked up at me, gauging my reaction. “She was pretty out of it at the time.”

“You raped her,” I whispered.

“That’s a very technical term for what we’re talking about. There were no consequences for her. She didn’t even know it had happened, and neither did anyone else. I wore a condom. I was respectful. I didn’t take pictures or video. I didn’t make fun of them.”

“Them? There was more than one?”

“Slip of the tongue.” Then he grinned at me, a naughty little boy caught in the act. “All right. More than one. But it’s harmless fun.”

“It’s rape,” I insisted. “If they couldn’t consent, you don’t know that they would have consented.”

“How could they say no to me?” He really meant it.

“Did you drug them?”

He held up his thumb and forefinger a few millimeters apart. “Little bit.”

“If they wouldn’t have said no, why did they need to be drugged?”

“I can’t be bothered with girlfriends. This is less hassle.”

I was thinking back to the party—to Lucy Blair with her head lolling as the bouncer carried her up the stairs, at Harry’s request. In front of everyone. I felt sick.

“How did Seb know what you’d done?”

“He hid in my room. He wanted to play a trick on me.” Harry folded his arms. “Got more than he bargained for.”

“Did he try to stop you?”

“No.”

“Did you know he was watching?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Did he record what you were doing?”

“On his phone.” Harry’s jaw tightened. “I couldn’t get him to delete it. He said it was proof.”

“And he blackmailed you.”

“Yes. For months.”

“But you kept doing it.”

“I like it,” he said softly. “Anyway, Seb didn’t care. He just wanted money and attention and power.”

“And access to your drugs. He used them on Lily.”

“He needed them. He couldn’t stand losing a challenge. He liked to brag that he could pull anyone he liked, and it was a good game to come up with the worst girls imaginable. Once you’d said it, he had to do it. He kissed a few shockers, let me tell you. Lily was different. She was a tough one. She didn’t want anything to do with him.” Harry shook his head. “I didn’t know he was going to take pictures. Amateur hour. My rule is that I never leave any evidence that could be used against me.”

“Very sensible. Seb is bad. You’re worse.” I was struggling to think in a straight line. My thoughts were weaving in and out of one another like drunken Morris dancers. “You tried to kill him.”

“We had an argument about how indiscreet he was being. He was showing off too much. He behaved as if he could get away with anything. He’d learned nothing from what happened to him on Saturday night. He was just obsessed with getting revenge on everyone who’d wronged him. He wanted me to make it happen and we argued.”

“How did he fall?”

“He was following me to my bedroom. Shouting at me. I couldn’t deal with it and I just turned round and pushed him to make him stop. He fell back against the rail of the walkway. Then he was gone. Over the edge.”

“So it was an accident.”

“Of course.” But he wouldn’t look at me.

“Then you can say that to the police. You don’t have to say why it happened. But the least you can do is get Guy off the hook.” I put one hand to my head. “Oh.”

“Are you all right?”

“I feel a bit strange.”

“I’m not surprised.” He stood up and walked toward me. “All this talk of me drugging girls and you’re sitting here as if you’re not in danger. What do you think was in the orange juice? Apart from Consolata’s perspiration, of course.”

“Did you spike my drink?”

“You tell me.”

“Stay away from me,” I managed to say.

“The hardest bit was keeping you interested while I waited for it to kick in.” He looked thoughtful. “It felt good to tell the truth. Like counseling. I should have tried that.”

I tried to stand up and he caught me as I fell forward.

“Don’t do that. You’ll hurt yourself.” He pushed me back onto the sofa. It felt like much too much trouble to try to stand up again. I blinked at him a few times, feeling my eyelids getting heavier and heavier. He nodded.

“Just let go.”

I didn’t want to.

I didn’t have any choice.

The room went dark around me, and I was gone.

20

I woke up without the least idea where I was. The sun was slanting in through the window, bathing the room in red light. Sunset. How long had I been asleep?

And why was I on the floor?

I sat up, and wished I hadn’t. My head was thumping and I was struggling to focus. I shut my eyes, then regretted it as I felt the room spin around me. Eyes open. Better, but not much.

I looked around, wondering where I was. It was a small room. Wood-paneled walls. A big window. A wooden bench. A rectangular box with a metal tray in the top. A wood-paneled door. A bucket with a ladle in it.

“A sauna. I’m in a sauna.” I almost laughed. What a ridiculous place to sleep. I got to my hands and knees and crawled over to the door. I reached up and tried the handle.

Locked.

A fact that was surprising enough to get through the fog that was filling my mind. It made me wonder if I had chosen to sleep in the sauna, or if I had been put there. I jammed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets and sat still for a moment, trying to remember. I had been at Mario’s. I had talked to Lily. I had talked to Claudia and Immy. I had talked to Nick. Nick had driven me to—

I sat up. I couldn’t remember everything that had happened after I arrived at Harry Knowles’s house, but I remembered him watching me as he sat, apparently relaxed, on his big sofa. And that had been around midday. It was the last memory I could be sure of. Everything else was in bits.